Well… it’s possible I contradicted myself, but I don’t see how. What did I say that I’ve contradicted?
Did you ever see Return of the Jedi? Remember how Luke couldn’t kill the bad guy, because then he’d become the bad guy himself? That’s kind of what it’s like. There’s probably a better analogy, but that’s the first one that sprang to mind.
A little backfill from the Canon.
First, re: Elven rings.
The elven rings were not made by Sauron himself, but were made with the knowledge Sauron had provided; therefore they were not inherently corrupted, nor affected their user in an evil way. But they were subject to the ruling ring, while Sauron wore it. When Sauron wore the One ring, no elf wore any of the elven rings.
Second, re: Elrond offing Isildur.
Elrond was good enough not to try to kill his ally Isildur. Isildur was Elrond’s nephew about 15 generations removed, Isildur had marched to war with Elrond from Rivendell, and Isildur’s wife and youngest kid were staying at Elrond’s place.
Elrond also knew that if he tried to do violence to Isildur, the most likely outcome would be that Elrond would claim the One Ring for himself, and then fail to destroy it.
Qadgop, thanks but that still doesn’t change my feelings on the film.
I’ll start with my problems with that scene, and then enlarge on my comments about the rest of the film. First of all, the way the scene was shot, Isildur and Elrond are right freakin’ there at the Crack of Doom, Isildur says, “Nah! Ain’t gonna do it.” and Elrond let’s him walk out. Now, I’m probably a cold hearted SOB, but even with all the things that you mentioned as back fill, I, personally, would have done my damnedest to whack the SOB and ditch the ring. After all, you’ve just fought the most vicious and bloody war in history and won it by the barest of margins, and you know that if the ring isn’t destroyed, you’re going to have to go through the whole thing again, and you might not get so lucky the next time. To my mind, it would have been better instead of showing that sequence to have Elrond describing the scene, and lamenting the fact that he was unable to resist the control that the ring had over him, which prevented him from killing Isildur and chucking him over the side. Short and sweet, without the image of the two characters right there, and just walking away. (And yes, I know that I added to the dialog to the film, my point is that the dialog I’m adding does a better job of explaining key events than the visual did.)
I think that there was so much dialog in the film because Jackson and the screenwriter thought that folks would deem the film “unauthentic” if it didn’t contain lots of dialog from the book. What they forgot, is that one of the techniques writers use is to have characters say things, which a person in real life wouldn’t need to say. Reason being, it enables the writer to describe something, without having large paragraphs that are simply description. A character can refer to something in dialog, and then the author can expound upon what the character has said by using narrative paragraphs.
For example when Aragon is saying
The character is explaining the depth of depravity to which the kings have sunk, this frees up Tolkien as the narrator to describe what they are doing. In the film, we can see that they’re pretty horrorific creatures, and that they are methodically ripping apart the room in the inn where they think that Frodo and the others are staying. We don’t need to know they’re entire history, because we can see the end results of their actions. Had Aragon said
while the ringwraiths were ripping the room apart, you’d still have all the important information. It doesn’t matter that they were once human, really, it doesn’t, because the film spends a great deal of time showing us how the ring corrupts. After all, Bilbo turns into a hideous beast when talking to Frodo about the ring. Gollum becomes what he is because of the ring, they’re on the quest because of how nasty the ring is! We don’t need a character taking up 34 seconds of screen time to tell us that the rings are nasty, when we’ve got a two hour long movie dedicated to showing us how nasty the thing is. (Yes, I know, Aragon isn’t describing how evil the ring is, he’s relating the effects of the ring on humans, but the reason he’s doing so is to dramatize how evil the ring is.)
A Shakespearean scholar once related a story about a girl who saw a Shakespearean play, loved it, and decided to read all of Shakespeare’s plays. When she did, she found herself bored. The reason she was bored, he said, is because Shakespeare was written to be spoken and not read. Shakespeare used words and combinations of words that do not flow easily or seem natural when read, but when spoken seem to be perfectly natural. The same is true of Tolkien or any other decent writer, in that they create their works so that everything seems natural in the medium in which they are creating it. Once you move their work out of that medium, you must change it to match the new medium. What Jackson tried to do, IMHO, is retain too much of the original medium when he created the film. As I said, from a visual standpoint, the film is fantastic. There aren’t shots where you’re trying to figure out what the hell the camera’s pointed at or shots where you’re screaming, “My God! You can see the strings!” It’s in trying to be too faithful to the source material’s dialog that Jackson gets it wrong.
I see where you’re coming from with this, but I don’t think you’re representative of all the people who watched this film. I have heard people say both things like, “Geez, it’s just a ring. What’s the big deal?” and “It’s powerful! They should have used it against the bad guy like Boromir wanted to!” The people who said these things missed the point that you seem to have understood all too well - the Ring is powerfully evil and it corrupts. So, while you’re saying they explained it too much, other people would appear to be of the opinion that they didn’t do enough. Criticisms cancelling out and all…
And I do still think it’s important that they were Men. You may not realize how important the characterization of Men as corrupt and weak is, but maybe after you’ve seen the other two films.
You know, one of the things I really hate in this world is that there’s a lot of “dumbing down” of things. Caused me no end of fits when I was in school.
Perhaps my opinion of the film would be different if I hadn’t read the books before I’d seen the film. (One would think that after twenty or so years my memories of the books would be faded to the point where I no longer remembered anything, but that wasn’t the case. They have stuck with me on at least a subconsious level. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory also imprinted itself deeply on me when I saw it at the age of two or three.)
Lessee. . . . .very long posts filled with massive, turgid explanations. “LOTR” in the title.
Sigh The geeks have taken over. Even a thread about how LOTR sucks isn’t safe.
Thanks for checking in. You know where to find us. 
Geeks on the Internet? I’m shocked, positively shocked!
I am still fairly new to these boards but am still amazed - amazed - at what wildly varying opinions intelligent (or at least clever) you people can have about movies.
For my part, I loved the LOTR books & was prepared to hate the movies - but wound up loving them, mainly I think for their visuals, their spectacular aspects, the music, and the cast. I can watch them over and over.
On the other hand I saw the 1st Star Wars once, though it was ok. Saw the next 2 - hated them. Wouldn’t see “Episodes I & II” if you paid me.
I am still fairly new to these boards but am still amazed - amazed - at what wildly varying opinions you intelligent (or at least clever) people can have about movies.
For my part, I loved the LOTR books & was prepared to hate the movies - but wound up loving them, mainly I think for their visuals, their spectacular aspects, the music, and the cast. I can watch them over and over.
On the other hand I saw the 1st Star Wars once, though it was ok. Saw the next 2 - hated them. Wouldn’t see “Episodes I & II” if you paid me.
Yeah, I guess Aragorn (Greasy Hair Dude, not Archer Dude) should have just said “Them Nazguls badass-undead-dudes” instead of wasting an additional 30 seconds.
I for one felt partonized & underestimated when Frodo says “Baggins? Shire? That will lead them here!” to Gandalf. Fuck’s sake, we’ve heard Gollum say it 3 times already. You can leave a clue sitck lying across the trail; I don’t need to be beaten about the head 4 times with the same 2 words. I refuse to beleive that I’m that much smarter than the average person too.
The other other reason that Frodo has to carry the ring to Mordor is that he’s not tempted by it nearly as much as the other characters because he’s a hobbit. Bilbo was able to give up the ring because he’s a hobbit. Sauron had it all figured out except that he didn’t count on these hairy-footed little midgets cropping up spontaneously. He didn’t count on the gene for “ring resistance” being linked to shortness, large hairy feet or pointed ears. Or maybe it’s a combination of all 3 genes that confer resistance to the lure of the One ring.
Yeah, Kate Blanchett’s little scene was cheesey. Most of the movie was cheesey. It’s about fairy-tale type things: Elves, dwarves, wizards. And Famke Janssen would have been good as Arwen just for the hot factor, but I think Liv Tyler brings more vulnerability to the role.
Lothlorien sucked. Period.
Oops…I meant to write that some people with whom I saw it were complaining about it being too hard to follow. Takes all sorts, I guess (Lothlorien sucked. Period.)
You put this on here just to see how many people you could make angry. Im sure of it.
End thread here!